


Ven a bailar

by Noscere



Series: Cladograms and Phylogenies [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bumbleby - Freeform, Childhood Memories, Diplomacy, F/F, Forgiveness, Freedom fighter vs. terrorist, Growing Old Together, Lack of Communication, Language Barrier, Nationality and ethnicity are different things, Nothing lasts forever, Physical Disability, Relationships take time and work, Singing heals everything, Songfic, though the words are used synonymously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-05-26 14:19:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6242722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noscere/pseuds/Noscere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Those who expect Blake Belladonna to be as black and white as her name are sure to be disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In this uncertain world

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blake Belladonna exists at an intersection of cultures and languages that flow as easily off her tongue as her love for a certain Yang Xiao Long.

It’s not a bad talent, for a Huntress and a diplomat: Blake can slip as easily and freely into someone’s native tongue as if she were merely draping a shawl over her shoulders. It might be linked to her ability to create clones of herself. Once upon a time, her clones were only good for distracting the enemy as she fled. Today, they speak as fluently as she does - and when they dissipate into the air, they bring the memories of their brief existence back to her.

She speaks over fifteen languages – from the spring-drenched soft tones of Taiyang’s native South Vale to the desert heat of her native Eastern Vacuo – and yet, when Blake Belladonna-Xiao Long pulls off her ribbon, everyone thinks she’s from Menagerie.

“Not all Faunus,” she grumbles, plunking the helmet on her head. She winces: even this modified helmet will cramp her ears if she jams it on. “I am here on diplomatic relations between Vale and Atlas, not a talk show. If _one_ more reporter asks me about my hypothetical life in Menagerie, I’m going to do a Yang and torch something. I didn't even live there!”

Yang offers her a sympathetic smile, and pecks her on the cheek.

She too has faced this strange world, in which the land she calls home does not consider people of her face to be native even if they were born and bred there.

 _Patch_ brings to mind dark haired warriors, wave-battered and stern-faced like Yang’s mother, the bonfires held under green aurora-streaked skies and the wooden porches with lights to guide weary strangers their way, and their sibilant wind-tossed language with its _ch_ and ts.

Yang, bright as a magnesium flame, beautiful as the orange-flecked sunstone set in her promise ring, looks like the epitome of a Southern Vale woman. But her father calls Patch home; windswept, snow-dusted Patch, even though his language is that of South Vale, and so they exist as half-and-half. Yang is not considered a true Patchian, because she looks like a southerner, but she cannot be a true southern Valean either, when she speaks and acts like a Patchian. Yang is an anomaly, in a place she calls home.

It rankles something within Blake. How cruel, that a woman who embodies Patchian values - their generosity, the way they welcome the storm-tossed and waterlogged to their doorsteps, their fervor to protect their loved ones – will never be considered a true citizen of her home. She can only be an attachment, suffixed onto her island home.

Blake has seen it in the Faunus - even ten years after Cinder's defeat and Adam's death, if you own a pair of ears or a tail, you are automatically a native of that prison called Menagerie. It is better than automatically being dubbed a member of the White Fang, but not by much. And she is tired. Even as a world-famous Huntress and diplomat, people overlook her Eastern Vacuo roots and her Patchian home, and focus on the ears hidden beneath her golden bow.

 

Yang raps on Blake's helmet. “Hey, if you're feeling up to it, we could head to the hotel and get that ‘ _doing a Yang’_ part going.”

Blake bats at her partner’s back, her actions mirrored by the thousands of meters of glass skyscrapers.

“Don't tempt me, Yang, I rather not end up on a talk show.”

"Promises, promises."

"You can cash them in at home, spitfire."

"Mmm… I look forward to it."

Yang slides her helmet over her golden locks. Her hair shimmers in the heat, casting specks of light onto the perfectly night-black pavement. Blake wouldn’t be surprised if the road had been painted prior to the conference and her arrival.

Her wife scans the road. Blake recognizes the pattern: a slow 270˚ sweep to check for traffic, then the remaining 90˚ to check for hazards behind her beloved bike. Then Yang straightens into a mock salute.

“Pre-driving checks complete! Where to, diplomat?”

Blake grips Gambol Shroud on her back out of habit. She has learned that peace comes at a price, and she rather that price not be her head.

 

Yang seems to sense her uneasiness.

"There's no one armed except us," she says quietly. Blake catches the faint beeping from Yang's prosthetic arm, and eases. Her partner has long since learned to be vigilant for those who seek to kill her.

“Let’s get dinner.”

"Are you paying?"

Blake grins and toys with a lock of golden hair. "Maybe when you get a real job, spitfire."

"Beating up monsters is totally a real job!"

Blake pulls out her Scroll and quickly flips through her options: Ezüst esö is a bit pricy, but she could afford it on her salary… Pyromania, a fondue place, better not with her personal flamethrower around… Durch die Nacht has long wait time, but she could treat Yang to something….

Screw it. She’s had a long day, and she misses Taiyang’s cooking.

“How does Southern Vale sound to you?”

Yang perks up, but her shoulders quickly slump. “I don’t know Blake… we’re in Atlas. Shouldn’t we, you know, taste what they have to offer?”

“I’ve had a lot of Atlesian _reporters_ today.” Blake puts away her Scroll and links her arms around Yang’s waist. “I’d like a taste of home.”

The road before them is spotless, almost clinically pristine; the pedestrians on the sidewalks almost robotic in nature compared to the golds and oranges of Yang’s bike. Blake thinks she understands why Weiss tried to flee this crystal prison: there’s something unnatural about this order. It’s nothing like the cluttered chaos of Yang’s childhood cabin, where Southern Vale and Patch intertwine like old lovers.

“I could do with some _feng zhua_ or _you tiao_ ,” Yang says as she revs the engine.

Blake presses a kiss to Yang’s exposed neck.

“Gun it, spitfire.”

“As my lady commands!”

 

They pull off the curb, picking up speed as they head down the road.

Blake feels a song building within her, the mix of tongues spilling out of her throat as Yang laughs, free as the sun soaring across the sky and the light beating on a hawk’s back. This is home: on the back of Yang’s beloved Bumblebee, gripping her partner tight around the waist and tasting sunshine with every breath.

 _“Zài bù quèdìng de shìjiè l_ _ǐ,”_ Blake sings in Taiyang’s native tongue and Yang’s heritage, her voice floating over the too-clean streets and clipped angry tones of pedestrians.

Yang laughs as they pull up at a red light. Though she does not speak Southern Vale with the plum blossom light tones of her father, she knows this song well.

"Remember?" she asks as lanes of black and silver cars slot by. "The night you proposed. You were standing beneath my window, holding your Scroll over your head…"

Blake groans. "Oh, no, Yang, not out here…"

She can hear the grin rising in her partner's voice. "You started singing _, '_ _Hái y_ _ǒ_ _u cuìruò bié shuō bié shuō bié shuō, yīnwèi n_ _ǐ_ _dōu d_ _ǒ_ _ng.'"_ The song is rougher on Yang's tongue, like the curled wood of a pine's trunk. "And I poked my head out, and was like, _Blakey, I appreciate the thought, but I got no clue what you're saying!_ "

"Laugh it up, spitfire…"

Yang chuckles to herself. "Dad had to teach you and me the correct pronunciations…" The light turns green, and Yang kicks off the ground. "Sing for me, Blakey? I love this song."

"The things I do for love," Blake grumbles, " _yīnwèi nǐ dōu dǒng_."

"Love you too," Yang replies, and Blake hears the smile and love emanating out from her partner like the heat of Bumblebee's engine.

“ _Zài bù quèdìng de shìjiè lǐ_ ,"  she sings as they pass by glass storefronts and mechanical policemen, the language organic on her tongue.

" _Hái yǒu ānwèi bié shuō bié shuō bié shuō._ ”

Blake clutches her partner and breathes in deep: she smells of exhaust and leather and lemon, and Blake wouldn’t trade it for the world.

“ _Zhǐyào yǒngbào wǒ_.”

The next words are lost on the summer-sweet breeze and in Yang’s delighted laughter.

 

* * *

 

 

Addendum:

“Well… on the down side, your supposed-lack of heritage in Menagerie is on the front page,” Yang says, lowering the newspaper. “I have to say, Atlas’s version of Lisa Lavender is kinda pushy. It sounds like she wants you to come on her show and sing for them.”

Blake breathes in the rosemary-scented cold compress.

“Blakey? You aren’t trying to suffocate yourself, right?”

The Cat Faunus presses the cold cloth to her face. “Why is it so difficult to believe that a native Eastern Vacuoan can speak Southern Valean near perfectly?”

“Some people are just narrow-minded, _ming qin_.”

“Pass the tea,” she says, barely keeping the whine out of her voice.

Yang laughs, and presses a hot mug into Blake’s free hand.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 在不確定的世界裡, "Zài bù quèdìng de shìjiè lǐ" by Waa Wei.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CJ-pJqVwD0
> 
> Region: South Vale  
> Language: Mandarin 
> 
> Rough, heavily embellished translation that I'm only doing because it's important to this chapter's meaning:  
> In this uncertain world  
> It's fragile, don't speak, don't speak, don't speak  
> Because you understand  
> In this uncertain world  
> There's comfort, don't speak, don't speak, don't speak  
> Just hold me
> 
>  
> 
> Note: I am just as illiterate as Yang, so I have taken heavy _heavy_ liberties with the translation. Feel free to correct me!  
> Blake's nickname, ming qin = songbird.


	2. One Last Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We may see our childhood through rose-tinted glasses, but that doesn't invalidate the good or the bad memories. A few years after Cinder and the White Fang are defeated, Blake returns to the village where it all began.

 “I thought I would never come here again.”

Yang grips her hand. To her right, Blake’s mother-in-law dips her head in silent contemplation.

“This is your home?” her wife asks.

Blake looks at the blackened skeletons of houses. Heavy vines hang from the rafters, laden with red-gold blooms. The gardens are overgrown, filled with wild carrot and the odd bit of parsley. She wonders if she’ll find her parents buried under the ash. It was almost twenty-five years ago. They must be dust now, if the fire hadn’t incinerated them the first time.

“It was,” she replies.

“I cleared the area of Grimm,” Raven says. “We should have this place to ourselves.”

Blake nods her thanks. Yang’s lips thin, but she says nothing. Her wife is still reestablishing an equilibrium with the mother who abandoned her for a “greater good” that eventually became the White Fang.

 

The Cat Faunus brings out the sticks of incense, a gift from Taiyang’s native land. Flames leap over Yang’s fingers. Blake touches the incense to the fire, and lets the sweet smoke drift over what was once her home.

Blake goes to the first house. Tattered curtains, bleached white by the sun and rain, still hang from the remnants of a wall overgrown with green ivy. Once upon a time, this was Adam’s home.

She lays a stick of incense at its base, and kneels. It was Raven who guided her back to her home; Raven who taught the man who would kill thousands in his quest for Faunus supremacy; Raven who helped cripple the organization she had nurtured from its shaky infancy. It was Adam who tore her from the smoky air and dragged her to safety; Adam who taught her to weld Gambol Shroud and disappear like smoke in the wind; Adam who nearly killed everyone she loved before she killed him.

There are only ghosts in the village of Danse now. She can almost hear them whispering, in the soft tones of their language of _tey_ and _la_ and _liaisons_.

 _I hope you have found a better world than the one you left_ , she thinks.

The last of her anger towards the megalomaniac dissipates into the summer air, wafted away by the sweet smoke.

Blake stands, dusting off her knees.

“I want to honor the rest of them,” she says.

 

As she watches Raven and Yang wander through the dusty ruins – Yang laying sunflowers at the base of every house, Raven humming a slow, passionate song – Blake can’t help but think she has a better relationship with the woman than her own daughter does.

Blake slightly remembers the black-feathered woman from her days as the Den Mother of Blake’s White Fang cell, but she is nothing like the woman Blake knew. As the Den Mother, Raven taught Adam to wield his sword and caught trout from the nearby river for Blake. As the ex-wife of Taiyang Xiao Long… Raven Branwen seems to be caught in an endless cycle of apologizing, then huffy periods of “I did what I had to.”

No wonder her partner’s relationship with her mother is so complicated.

 

At last, they have done a tour of the village. Every ruin is decorated with a stick of incense and a sunflower. It’s nothing compared to the hustle-bustle of wildflowers and goats bleating in every yard that she can faintly remember. Raven’s song cannot hide the emptiness that was once filled with the stream of _tey_ and stressed vowels of her village tongue.

Yang immediately reaches for Blake’s hands, her backpack now bereft of golden blooms.

“How are you feeling, Blakey?”

The Cat Faunus takes a deep breath.

“Forgiving,” she says. She looks at Raven. “What is that song?”

“It’s a prayer, to some,” the older woman replies. She looks to Yang, as if for approval. Yang tilts her head. “Well… when I was teaching you and Adam, it was a lullaby. It… it was to tell children that tomorrow would be better.”

Blake thinks of the noise of the village, now forever buried in ash. She thinks of the songs that died with her parents: a history of Faunus, now lost to its descendants, because of a human mob’s wildfire anger.

“Where does it come from?” she asks.

“Adam… was the one who taught me. I don't know where it comes from.”

Yang merely nods, and looks to Blake. She grips her lover's hand, as if to assure her that Yang will be okay. A rush of warmth floods her chest – Yang has never forgiven Adam for what he did, but she has come to understand the monster beneath the mask. As a diplomat, Blake has seen from experience that this is as much as she can expect. Some wounds run too deep for forgiveness.

“Will you teach me?” Blake asks.

Raven clears her throat. “Wow… it’s been a long time. Um, I’m really sorry if I mangle the language–“

“Please try, Raven,” Yang says.

The older woman looks to her daughter, then her daughter in law. Blake thinks she can see the past reconnecting with the present, like a snake swallowing its own tail.

 

“ _Une derniere danse,_ ” Raven sings, a little off-tune, her voice husky and sunset-shadowed. “ _Pour oublier ma peine immense_.”

Blake’s ears twitch. Her childhood lullabies were apparently darker than she thought, if they spoke of pain and oblivion.

“ _Je veux m'enfuire que tout recommence_. _Oh ma douce souffrance…”_

Definitely darker than she remembers. But isn’t that how history changes? People start viewing the past with different colored lenses.

Beside her, Yang starts humming. Her partner is trying to learn the song.

“ _Et dans le bruit, je cours et j'ai peur_. _Est ce mon tour?_ ” Raven gestures to the ruins of Adam’s home. “ _Vient la douleur...”_

But it makes sense, that even their lullabies are filled with pain, when the village itself is a creation of segregation and fear.

She thinks of Adam, and the hope he had once preached, before the Den Mother was ousted from the White Fang's leadership.

" _Dans toute la vie, je m’abandonne_."

The wind spirals through the ruins, heavy with incense smoke and sunflower petals.

“ _Et je m'en vole, vole, vole, vole, vole_.”

 

* * *

 

 

Months later, while on a mission to save a Faunus and human village from a nest of Grimm, Blake finds herself humming that same song.

History is repeating, but for the better. She thinks of Adam, and the life he could have lived; she thinks of her home village, and the stories they could have told that disappeared in flame. She thinks of the little boys studying to become Huntsmen and doctors and teachers in the village; she thinks of how a pair of ears is as natural as black hair, and she can't help but smile. 

“ _Je remue le ciel, le jour, la nuit.”_ Blake skips over a puddle, Gambol Shroud held high over her head. The forest is dense with pine needles, but her Faunus eyes can see every scale on the Taijitsu’s back. “ _Je danse avec le vent, la pluie…”_

Yang puts a burst of metal into a Taijitsu’s skull. “Could use a little help here!”

“ _Un peu d'amour_ ,” Gambol Shroud swipes across the clearing, decapitating the two Beowolves racing for her wife’s unprotected back, “ _un brin de miel…”_

Yang fires Ember Celica over and over at the Taijitsu’s head. The two partners glance at each other, and the plan falls in place.

The dark-haired warrior jumps onto the Taijitsu’s trunk. She remembers the drills from her White Fang days – go for the head like a mongoose, and move with the undulations of its ice-colored body.

She briefly sees Adam – his red sword held aloft – but it’s not Yang or herself under the blade. She can almost see her former friend preparing the strike he had shown her so many times before.

Gambol Shroud goes high in the air, and sinks into the Taijitsu’s head.

“ _Et je danse, danse, danse, danse, danse._ ”

The Taijitsu dissipates beneath her toes.

Blake can faintly hear Raven’s husky voice, mingled with what might be her own mother’s, on the pine-tinged air.

She smiles as she dashes back into the fray, her ghosts at her back.

# 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: Dernière Danse, by Indila.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5KAc5CoCuk  
> Language: Parisian French
> 
> Region: Eastern Vacuo 
> 
> Translation:  
> One last dance / to forget my immense pain  
> I want to flee so it all restarts  
> Oh, my sweet suffering  
> And in the noise, I run and I'm scared  
> Is it my turn? / Here comes pain  
> In all my life, I leave it all  
> And I fly, fly, fly fly, fly
> 
> I stir the sky, the day, the night  
> I dance with the wind, the rain  
> A little love, a strand of honey  
> And I dance, dance, dance, dance, dance
> 
> I admit, this piece is not my best. I felt this song was a little more difficult to work with than the Catalan French song coming in chapter 4. Reviews would be appreciated!


	3. Take Me to Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that violence is not always the answer, a lesson that Yang Xiao Long still struggles to learn even a few years after Salem's defeat. Blake, on the other hand, is remembering how to forgive.

“Blakey, please, you gotta listen–“

The diplomat pushes her partner’s hands off her shoulders. “No. I don’t.”

“Please, I did this for–“

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“I know I fucked up bad, but please, I did this for you!”

Blake gets up from her desk, carefully avoiding Yang’s pleading eyes. She carefully straightens a pile of folders – old missions, transcripts of White Fang wire taps, lists of known White Fang members attempting to revive the organization’s bloodier side. On her desk lies years of work, and thousands of hours spent bringing peace between the humans and the Faunus.

“We made a promise, Yang.” Blake runs a thumb over her wedding ring: an alexandrite set in sun-bright gold. The setting sun casts its rosy rays onto the stone, casting shards of green and yellow light over Blake’s arms. “No more secrets. No more running away. And then you caught wind of a White Fang cell, and you went running after them without telling me.”

Yang looks down, her golden locks cascading over her face. She touches her wedding ring in turn, pinkie brushing the opal set in moon-bright stainless steel. Lower on her finger is the orange-flecked sunstone in her promise ring.

Promises, promises - all broken in turn. Isn't there a saying for that? _Promises are meant to be broken._

“I can’t just stay at home and be useless. I-I had to do somet–“

“Like getting killed?” Blake grabs her right arm – Yang winces. Although a biosynthetic arm has replaced the mechanical substitute, the memory still burns. “Or lose another limb? You’re even more useless dead – I can’t believe you would do this to me!”

Yang fades, and Blake burns.

“Blake, I know how much the White Fang hurt you. I didn’t want them to hurt you anymore! I don’t want you to get hurt either!”

Blake slaps her hand on the table. The piles of paperwork scatter over her desk. “You – you don’t get to decide who hurts me! I can’t believe you, Yang. I thought we trusted each other more–“

“Why can’t you see that I did this for you?”

They both freeze, as the memory of a blood-haired terrorist springs to mind.

“Leave,” she says.

“I’m so sorry.” Tears collect on Yang’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Blake, I–“

“Leave my office. Now.”

Yang flees, flames licking the air in her wake.

 

Blake takes a deep breath and sinks into her swivel chair. It’s hard these days and tempers are running short, with the remnants of the White Fang rechristening themselves the “Black Claw” – hell, this is the first time Weiss has gone on a mission in years. The adrenaline pulses hot through her veins. Perhaps later, when the buzz is gone, she will feel shame and she will cry and beg for forgiveness.

Some part of her refuses to give that forgiveness. Yang has seen the scars on Blake’s soul, one last gift from the White Fang. The golden brawler knows all too well how it feels to be the one left behind.

 _What if you died_? Blake closes her eyes. Tears drip down her nose. _Damn it, Yang! What if you died, and left me alone? Why didn’t you trust me? Why don’t you trust me? I thought you knew me better than that. How could you, Yang? How could you do this to me?_

Her Scroll rings.

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and taps the screen.

“Blake Belladonna, Huntress, at your service.”

“We’ve got a lock on a Black Claw cell,” Ruby says. Blake can faintly hear the crackle of dry leaves and the whisper of a gentle breeze brushing dry branches. “Get ready, because this is a doozy, and my signal’s pretty bad.”

The Cat Faunus shakes her head. She can mope later. Right now, she needs to focus on a wannabe terrorist group.

Blake picks up a pencil and tugs a free sheet of paper off the scattered sheets. “I’m ready. What do you need?”

 

* * *

 

The cell is small, no more than thirty Faunus at most. It still takes Blake and Ruby a week to clear it out. The initial strike on the cell nabs the enforcers and most of the flunkies, but the leader escapes deep into the heart of Vacuo.

They’re in a hotel, today, after another lead has ended in an ambush. Blake’s hair is still wet from the shower. She rubs it dry as she enters the main room, where Ruby lies on one of the beds, Scroll propped against a stack of pillows. The bandages wrapping Ruby’s arms are bloodied, but Blake can feel the thrum of Aura from her position, and knows that her team leader is healing quickly.

Still, that doesn’t assuage the worries of the Schnee Dust Company’s CEO.

 

“-Take care of yourself, okay?” Weiss says. Her mouth lags behind her words. “I don’t like it when you get hurt."

“Awww, you really do love me!”

“Of course I do! Dolt.”

Ruby sticks her tongue out at the screen. “Blake just came in, so we gotta cut the lovebird talk. Hey, Blake! Say hi to Weiss!”

“Hi to Weiss,” Blake replies. A pang of loneliness runs through her heart. Ruby and Weiss speak with such easy love, and yet Blake has hardly talked to Yang since she left for the mission. “How are the stockholders taking the news?”

Weiss stretches. Although Blake can’t see anything beyond the CEO’s collarbone, bubbles hiss and pop. The CEO is probably relaxing after a long day. Blake would bet that off-screen, there is a liter’s worth of wine waiting by the tub.

“Better, now that they don’t think they’re targets.” Weiss frowns. “Yang isn’t taking this off-mission time very well. She’s taken an unusual interest in my piano.”

“Ah, that’s just my sis. She loves music,” Ruby says.

“She can’t play the piano.” Weiss huffs. “I guess I’ll just have to find a teacher for her.”

“Are you volunteering?” Blake says with a small smile.

“Do I look like I’m made of time?”

“Yup! A timeless beauty as always.” Ruby laughs as Weiss flicks a wad of soap bubbles at the screen. “All right, I’ll leave you to your bubble bath. I love you, Weiss.”

The CEO’s face softens. “Love you too, Ruby. Take care of Blake, okay?”

“Hey, why am I the baby sitter?” Ruby asks just as Blake says, “Don’t worry, Ms. Schnee, I’ll have your wife home by next week.”

“I object to that!” Ruby launches herself across the bed, playfully tackling Blake, as Weiss’s laughter fills the room.

 

* * *

  

The house is unusually still when Blake limps back home, a brand new scar tracing the curve of her bicep. Normally, it would be filled with the strains of Yang’s music – sometimes hip hop from the island of Patch, sometimes classical music that wouldn’t sound out of place in the elevators of Weiss’s mansion. It is only this quiet when Yang is out on a mission.

She turns the key in its lock, wincing. Stupid terrorists. Stupid Faunus. Stupid people, stirring up shit. Why can’t people just stay at home and be happy?

Blake mentally berates herself for that thought. She should know better than anyone that there are souls who cannot look past the injustice of this world, even after their role in its removal has finished. Her mother-in-law is one such woman. Blake herself is that kind of soul.

 _Yang. Oh, Dust. What if she gets killed?_ Blake kicks off her boots and races to the bedroom. _Please, please, let her live. Two decades is not nearly enough. I want her to live, I want her to grow old with me, I want to love her until we’re old and grey and don’t take her away, please…_

The bedroom door is slightly ajar. The soft tones of a piano float out of the room.

Blake slows down. The argument from last week still rankles in her soul.

She takes a deep breath. Each day could be their last together. There is no reason to still hold a grudge.

_How could you leave me? Why couldn’t you trust me more?_

 

“ _My lover's got humour_ … _She's the giggle at a funeral_ ,” Yang sings, her voice soft and candle-lit. “ _Knows everybody's disapproval_ … _Should've listened to her sooner_ …”

Blake rolls her eyes. Of all the things to connect them, it is their common tongue, the language of West Atlas, the one used to write the Accord of Vytal, the one used to seal peace between Faunus and humans.

“ _My work offers me no absolutes_ ; _She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom._ ""

The Cat Faunus slips into the bedroom. Yang sits before the window, at an upright piano whose keys shine with polish. She grudgingly admits that Yang has put work into this apology.

“This doesn’t make up for running after the White Fang,” she says quietly.

Yang’s fingers slip, but she soon recovers. “ _The only heaven I'll be sent to_ , _is when I'm alone with you_.” Her cadence is shaky, but grows stronger as her fingers find purchase on the ivory colored keys. “ _I was born sick, but I love it_ , _command me to be well."_

Her lover takes a deep breath.

“ _Amen. Amen. Amen._ ”

 

Yang’s sun-dusted fingers linger on the keys, pressing chords that resonate in the rosy air. Her hair floats free over her shoulders, a halo given physical form.

“ _Take me to church_.” Her partner presses hard onto the piano. “ _I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of my lies."_

Blake perches on the bed, and loosens her bow. Her ribbon flutters to her lap. Black-tipped ears point towards the melodic chords floating from the piano.

“ _I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife_.”

The diplomat loosens the harness holding Gambol Shroud. She sets the weapon beside her. On the bedside table, Ember Celica rests atop a dog-eared Ninjas of Love.

“ _Offer me that deathless death_.”

Yang’s voice shudders with unshed tears.

“ _Good God, let me give you my life!_ ”

“No,” Blake says, her voice barely a whisper. “Why can’t you see, spitfire…? I want you to live…. I have never wanted anything but you by my side.”

 

Her partner’s hands drop from the piano.

“ _Get a real job_ ,” Yang says. Blake winces as the memories comes rushing back. A joke, lobbed after she wrapped up Yang’s wounds. “I’m getting old, partner. Sooner or later – sooner, if this goes on, I won’t be able to fight anymore.”

“I want you to be happy. I want you to live.”

Yang rests her forehead against the piano. Her right hand plunks out the harmony of the song. “ _If I'm a pagan of the good times, my lover's the sunlight…_ Blake, you’re a diplomat. I’m… I’m just a Huntress.” She flexes her arms. “When I’m old and grey, what am I going to do? I can’t punch things as well anymore. This… this cannot last.”

“But we can.” Blake sets her hands on her partner’s shoulders. “I’m so sorry, I never meant for you to take it that way. I wanted you to live above all. I want to grow old and grey with you, Yang, and nothing will ever change that.”

“ _To keep the Goddess on my side_ ," Yang sings, picking the melody out of the piano, " _she demands a sacrifice_ …”

Blake presses a kiss to her fiancée’s neck. “I want you to live. I want you to be happy.”

“I want to be useful. I don’t want to be the one left behind.” Yang takes a shuddering breath. “ _That looks tasty. That looks plenty. This is hungry work. Take me to church…_ ”

The diplomat wraps her arms around her partner’s waist. “I’m so sorry.”

 

They stay there, basking in each other’s presence. Yang’s fingers trace the facets of Blake’s ring.

“I’m sorry,” Yang says finally. “I should have told you.”

“Yeah… you should have.” Blake kisses her wife’s neck. “I’m still not happy about it.”

“I know, Blakey.” Her fiancée turns around, and gives her a fragile smile. “I guess… we should do the talking you diplomats love so much?”

Blake kisses her – soft and sweet, it promises a future.

“Sounds like a plan, spitfire.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: "Take Me to Church," by Hozier  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19CZgDCibSE)  
> Region: West Atlas
> 
> Atlas is the region of mainly Germanic + Slavic + Scandinavian languages, with English being one of them. 
> 
> I'll have to go on hiatus once again, thanks to final exams, but when we return: 
> 
> 4) With Me, featuring Blake's adopted language.  
> 5) Maybe the Sky is Green, featuring Patch's native language. (I'm not sure if the word translates to green, or blue. Languages are weird.)


	4. With Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rhythm of hips and hands replaces that which language fails to describe. After too many close calls with the White Fang and Black Paw, Yang and Blake have a night together.

Blake slips back into her Southern Vacuo when her blood’s pulsing hot and Yang’s watching her like a cat ready to pounce. She draws on the heady desert heat of her words, the intermingling of Southern Vacuo of her upbringing and Eastern Vacuo of her village, and draws it out through red-painted lips and blush-tinted breasts.

“You know the safeword?” she asks, twisting the silk scarf around her fingers.

Yang rolls her eyes. “Gunslinger. I got it, love.” She rocks against the ropes holding her fast to the wooden chair. “Can we get started?”

"Get ready, spitfire." 

Blake presses play on her Scroll.

“ _Tu me regardes et fais ton entrée._ ” She reclines on the bed, just out of Yang’s reach. “ _Premier regard je suis charmé_.”

Yang cocks her head.  
  
“ _J'avais juste prévu de rentrer_.” Blake plants a foot on Yang’s thigh and crooks her finger under her lover’s chin. Her partner strains against the ropes, arms twitching behind the chair, but the diplomat only shakes her head and Yang goes limp. “ _Et puis sur toi je suis tombé._ ”

She wonders if her accent is leaking through - the tones of Atlas and Vale, in the sea-kissed sounds of Vacuo. She decides it doesn't matter. To a purist, the mixing of tongues would be painful - but she and Yang are proof that the blur between cultures is beautiful on its own.

 _I can't believe she loves me,_ Blake thinks as she leans in. _I'm so lucky._

Blake nips at Yang’s ear, teeth digging into fragile flesh, “ _Tu as la peau qu'on voudrais goûter_ ,” and digs in a nail under her chin, forcing out a hiss from between sun-reddened lips, “ _Et le sourire muy caliente_.”

 

Blake leaps back, feet planting in the soft carpet. She sways from side to side, caressing her breasts over the black lace bra. Red silk flutters over her hips to the rhythm of the beat. The Cat Faunus pushes her breasts up – gives her lover a look that promises fire and sparks – lets them bounce as she shakes her hips, and relishes in the fine blush spreads up her lover’s cheeks.

“ _Me laisse pas solo, solo,_ ” the singer chants as Blake draws the red silk over her breasts, “ _J'veux pas te saouler_ , _je veux juste un tango et te voir tanger_.”

“Sweet Dust, Blakey,” Yang breathes. Her eyes focus in on the sway of her lover’s hips, like a panther waiting for its prey to take a step closer, and bridge the distance for a pounce. “What did I do to deserve you?” 

“ _Est-ce que t'aimes danser, te balancer_?” The Cat Faunus plops into her lover’s lap and licks her index. “ _Arrête un peu de penser_ ,” Blake slips her finger between Yang’s thighs, “ _et laisser moi t'enlacer.”_

Yang moans as her lover draws her finger up against needy flesh.

“ _On pourrait bouger, se mélanger_ ,” the radio chants. Blake withdraws her finger and licks it clean with a swipe of her tongue. Yang looks away, eyes downcast, lips parted by heavy breaths. Blake presses a kiss to that blood-red cheek. “ _Se mettre un peu en danger, oh.”_

 

The music shifts. Blake stands. The silk scarf flutters through the air behind her.

“ _Conmigo, conmigo venga bailar_!” Blake weaves the silk scarf between her thighs, drawing it past black lace panties. It comes away, dark with fluid. Yang licks her lips. “ _Conmigo, conmigo venga bailar!_ ”

“Blake, please…”

The Cat Faunus gives the golden brawler a grin full of teeth, and does not heed.

“ _Conmigo! Conmigo venga bailar!_ ”

The song pulses in the background. She keeps time with a shimmy of her shoulders and a twirl of the silk scarf wound around her wrists. The words don’t matter, nor do their meaning when Yang’s eyes are fixed on the swing of Blake’s hips. 

They speak a language as old as the stars and sky themselves – the hard set of Yang’s shoulders as the brawler strains against ropes, the soft curve of Blake’s thighs as the diplomat twists and turns on the spot. There is fire in the Faunus’s veins, and fuel hungry for flame in the human’s.

Blake is pressed against Yang one minute and torn away the next: she follows the rhythm of the music with the _pad-pad_ of her toes and the rush of black hair over her shoulders. Yang is sun-warmed against Blake's skin one second and blazing heat the next: she is drawn into Blake's orbit, fluxing to the beat of Blake's heart and the twirl of the silk scarf between Gambol Shroud-calloused fingers.

In this moment, suspended in the dusk-tinged air, they understand each other perfectly.

 

“ _Tu es un ange venu me tenter_ ,” Blake sings, in the sand-swept tones of her teenage days. She looks at Yang, and dares her lover to fly to the sun. “ _Et je pourrais bien succomber?_ ” 

Lost in the beat and the sway of her breasts, Yang stares up at Blake with unseeing eyes.

“ _Entre nous y'a le fuego, l'envie.”_ Blake turns her back on her lover and draws the scarf across the hollow of her back. “ _Tant de désirs inassouvis_ ,” she slides up and down Yang’s calf, as if she were merely sharpening her claws, “ _si le désir est de la partie!_ ”

Normally, the Cat Faunus does not want people to look at her ears and think her an animal. It was the ears and tails of her people that led to their imprisonment in tiny, barely humane villages. But Yang looks at her ears with such love, mouths at them when they pass by her lips with such care, and Blake knows that her lover sees them as a part of a greater whole.

It’s nice, to be loved for who you are.

It’s even better to be desired.

“Blake… please…!” Tiny flames flicker around Yang’s arms. “Please! I want you!”

 

“ _Dis moi c'que j'dois faire pour t'amadouer_.” Blake drops the scarf. It pools on the ground, an offering to the old gods. “ _On pourrais bouger se mélanger_. _”_ She draws Gambol Shroud from the dresser, and slices through the rope. “ _Se mettre un peu en danger, oh!_ ”

Yang pins Blake to the bed, strong hands clasped around battle-scarred wrists.

“You’re driving me crazy, Blakey,” she growls, and nips at her lover’s collarbone.

“Always happy to please, spitfire.”

“ _Conmigo!_ ” the song chants, as Yang unhooks the lacy bra and tosses it away. _“Conmigo, venga bailar!_ ”

Blake presses a finger to Yang’s lips. “I love you.”

“ _Conmigo!_ ”

Yang smiles. “Love you too, Blakey.”

And then her lover’s lips are on Blake’s, and it’s hot and wet and moist, and Blake thinks of nothing but the sunny warmth of Yang’s hair twirled between her fingers.

  _“Conmigo, venga bailar!_ ”

 

 

 

 

**Addendum:**

Out of all the things Blake expected to find when she returned home, Yang in lingerie so sexy it should be illegal was not one of them. Neither was the Scroll blaring, “ _I’m bringing sexy back_ ,” or Yang’s attempt to dance to the song in four-inch high heels. Needless to say, the bed did not agree with her attempts. Yang ended up toppling to the ground, her heels caught in the silken sheets.

Blake was too busy staring at the curve of Yang’s hips.

Her lover winces. She pulls the bra strap back over her shoulder.

“Um… welcome home, love.”

Blake swallows hard.  “…This is a pretty good welcome. Are you hurt?”

“Nah, I can tank it. I wanted to surprise you.” Yang blows out a breath. “This song is not as good as I thought it was.”

“ _I’m bringing sexy back~”_

“Oh my god, just shut up already.” Yang stabs down on her Scroll.

“ _Don’t let me go, oh–_ “

Her lover lets out a frustrated whimper and turns off the Scroll. "This isn't the best anniversary gift, Blakey. I tried. Gold star…?"

“To be fair, some songs are… more romantic in other languages.” Blake laughs and crouches next to her fallen lover. “ _Conmigo_ means, ‘with me.’”

Yang rubs her shoulders. “There’s got to be more than that.”

“Ah, well, the song is about dance as a sex metaphor.”

Yang rolls her eyes. “It’s a lot more romantic when only one of us understands the song.”

“And it’s a lot sweeter when we both understand.” Blake plops a kiss on Yang’s forehead and straddles her partner’s chest. “While you’re here… mind if I take advantage of this?”

Her lover smiles and does her best to strike a pose. "Draw me like one of your–"

“Please don't pull out an anime quote.” Blake traces the curve of Yang's cheek, following a thin scar from Yang's jawbone to her eye. "I want to savor this moment with you."

“Wouldn’t dream of it, _mon ange_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music: "Conmigo", Kendji Girac  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uG6E6bVKU0)
> 
> Region: South Vacuo (analogous to Catalonia)  
> Language: French, with a bit of Spanish
> 
> No translation this time, in keeping with the theme of this chapter. Conmigo, however, means "with me", and "ven a bailar" = "dance with me." The rest… well, dance as a sex metaphor. Go wild.
> 
> Well! This chapter was… frustrating to write. You'd think that knowing a language would make it easier to work into a songfic. Lewdness is not my strong suit!
> 
> Look for an update this Friday/Saturday. Just have two more final exams, and then Dobby is a free elf.


	5. Maybe the Sky is Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things rapidly change in the span of three weeks, after Yang's huntressing career comes to an abrupt end in Mistral.

Tragedies happen in threes.

* * *

 

The sun beats down on Blake’s back, but the gusts of wind from the Wyvern Grimm’s wings quickly cool her. The Grimm is threatening a major Mistralian shipping city. Who better to send out than a diplomat who can calm civilians in their native tongue, and a powerhouse who only grows stronger with every hit?

It’s true that she is in her late forties, but when Blake’s dancing along the Wyvern’s back, gouging out chunks of flesh from the hardened hide with Gambol Shroud, she feels like she’s seventeen and looking at Yang from across the Ursa carcass.

Her partner, on the other hand, is slowing down. Sure, her hair may shine like the sun over wind-swept seas and her flame may burn as bright as a magnesium flame, but a thousand injuries are embedded in her bones. Yang likes to joke that she’s more scar tissue than flesh, but at this point, it is more or less the truth. She is slowing down, because the flesh cannot keep up with the spirit, and age sinks its relentless rot into the fiber of her form.

Of course, in the fire of battle, neither of them can see their time running out. 

She tosses Gambol Shroud to Yang – her lover catches the mobile blade in a gauntleted hand and leaps from the skyscraper’s roof. Blake pulls. Her partner swings up to the Grimm’s armored back, fist blazing with flame, and punches a neat hole through the beast’s hips.

The great beast thrashes.

Blake’s boots slip off smooth ebony scales. The city streets beckon to her weightless body; gravity is calling, and her flesh is listening.

“Blake!” Gambol Shroud’s ribbon goes taut, and then Blake is weightless and soaring through the sun-streaked air. As she flies upwards, she catches a glimpse of her partner. Yang has wrapped the ribbon around the beast’s maw, guiding the Wyvern into a steep dive.

“Gotcha, bella.” Blake alights upon the beast’s back, ignoring her partner’s wink. Yang pouts. Gambol Shroud’s ribbon unwinds from the beast’s jaws. “What do you say–“ Yang’s eyes widen. She takes the blade in her hand and stabs it deep into the Wyvern’s back. “Blake, look out!”

The Wyvern twists sharply.

One second, her partner has her hand around Gambol Shroud’s hilt – the next, her lover is flying straight towards the penthouse balcony of a nearby skyscraper.

Even at this distance, the Cat Faunus hears the wet _snap!_

She shatters.

She reels her weapon back in. Blood pulses hot in her ears.

“For Yang!”

Blake stabs Gambol Shroud deep into the junction of the Wyvern’s shoulders, nearly separating the neck from the shoulders.

The beast begins to crumble into dust.

The diplomat doesn’t wait – she races off of her dissipating platform, launches herself into the summer air, flings Gambol Shroud at the nearest skyscraper balcony – she swings like a leaf caught on the breeze, jumping from building to building until she arrives

Yang stirs feebly when Blake reaches her. Blood pools around the golden brawler. Tiny fires flicker over the broken form.

“Yang, stop!” Blake says as she sees her lover attempt to get up, but she’s too late. Yang howls like a wounded Grimm, and it takes every drop of willpower to keep from moving her lover.

Tears drip down the golden Huntress’s cheeks.

“Blakey… I can’t feel my toes.”

 

* * *

 

It’s thanks to the Schnee Dust Company’s advances in cybernetics and a team of highly trained EMTs that Yang does not completely sever her spinal cord.

“Thank Dust,” Taiyang whispers when the surgeon tells them the good news after a thirty-hour long surgery. The cane clatters onto the mottled tiled floor. He buckles, and Ruby just barely catches her ageing father. “When will – thank you so much, Doctor, when will we be able to see her?”

Dr. Vasilias, the image of his blue-haired father, consults his notes. “When she comes around. There were three serious breaks.” A series of X-Rays fan out from the doctor’s scroll. He points them out – one below the shoulders, one mid back, and one above the pelvis. “Her hips were also shattered. We managed to reconstruct them, but I’m afraid she’ll never be able to go on missions again.”

A void sat in the pit of Blake’s stomach.

“She’s alive,” Weiss said, holding her wife. The CEO gave Ruby a little shake, then hugged her tighter. “She’s alive, Ruby! That’s all that matters.”

Blake’s Scroll beeps. She pulls it out, and groans.

> _White Fang cell making plans in West Mistral. Report to nearest Hunter HQ immediately._

“Not now, we already beat you twice!” Her limbs ache and her mind begs for sleep, but this has to be done now. She looks at her family with bleary eyes. They look back at her with sympathetic smiles - although they do not share the same blood, their ties were forged in blood. “I’m sorry, Mr. Xiao Long, Weiss and Ruby. Duty calls _again_.”

“Do what you must,” Taiyang says. “We’ll be waiting.”

That doesn’t assuage her fears in the slightest, but Blake forces herself to walk out of the antiseptic air and into the broiling heat outside of the hospital.

 

* * *

 

Normally, the process of dismantling a White Fang cell is a slow, arduous process that involves mapping its network, tracking down its supporters and either jailing them or swaying their alliances, and then finally attacking the HQ. This cell is different. It plans to blow up a hospital where a Faunus with a bloodborne disease was refused service. And although Blake cannot agree with the hospital’s decision, she cannot stand by and watch her people plot murder.

Blake tears through the henchman like a steel blade through a stalk of wheat. His blood paints her uniform, but she doesn’t care. His superior lies motionless on the floor beside him, arms cuffed behind his back. They are going to drain every answer from his brain and then throw him in the nearest jail to rot.

The girl tied up in the corner swears at her. “ _You won’t leave here alive!_ ” she cries. “ _You killed my dad! I’m gonna kill you!_ ”

“Not today, kiddo, she says, barely glancing over. “Shut up, and don’t dig yourself a hole.”

 _It’s over_. Blake’s legs give out beneath her. The warehouse floor is warm with gore beneath her. The blood laps at her clothes, clinging to her like a second skin. _It’s over. I never have to fight these crazy fucks again._

“Lion to HQ, Lion to HQ,” she says, as her coworkers approach from the other end of the warehouse. “We’ve bagged the snakehead, and we’re coming home.”

“Copy,” her handler says. “There’s a bit of bad news when you get back, Lion.”

Blake almost laughs. “What could be worse?” she mutters.

 

* * *

 When she arrives at HQ, she finds out the SDC cannot save Yang’s parents from the slow advance of age. While Yang was recovering in the hospital, Raven passed away peacefully in her sleep.

“ _For fuck’s sake_.” Blake nearly drops into a heap before her handler's desk. “Oh, Yang, why is the world so cruel to you? Why does the world hurt the best people it has?”

* * *

 

After Yang’s release from the hospital, they return to the little cabin bordered by thick oak forests on the cliffside of Patch. While Yang recovers, Taiyang fills out the forms so she can receive disability payments from the Hunter’s Association. Blake takes some time off her diplomatic duties to help her lover recover.

That is, if Yang would just let her into the childhood bedroom.

The cabin in Patch is somehow more crowded than when she last saw it. Hundreds of paintings line the corridors: watercolor portraits of team STRQ goofing off; oil landscapes of the places she had called home over the years; there was even a small gouache miniature of Adam with his mask off. Abandoned easels sit half-finished under ink-splotched sheets. Ceramic statuettes of Grimm hide in the nooks of bookshelves. A pottery wheel, still caked in dust, camps out by the backyard door.

It seems like Raven could hop out from behind a door any minute, laughing in that dusky voice. But of course, she never will.

Yang’s childhood home is still filled with music: the ballads of Taiyang’s native tongue, bouncy hiphop from Mistral, and whatever Raven played.

But Yang’s room is silent.

Her lover has begun painting. She can sit up, though not without painkillers coursing through her body. Her lover paints the fires that streaked across Beacon’s towers, and the blood that flowed in rivers during the final fight against Salem. The figures fighting on ash-caked ground are barely distinguishable in the sea of black and red smears of paint.

Blake tries to fill the silence in-between with Raven’s songs, the ones she crooned when she visited her ex-husband, hoping to woo her daughter back. It’s to no avail.

 

“Give her some time,” Taiyang says, kneading the dough between wrinkled hands. “It was all so sudden. You were closer to Raven than she was, but Raven was still her mother.”

The Cat Faunus pops a sunflower seed-adorned macaron into her mouth. “I’ve tried, Mr. Xiao Long. It’s been two weeks since the funeral and I – I just want to help her! Is that so much to ask?”

“Blake.” Taiyang puts the dough into a stainless steel bowl. He covers the bowl with a wet cloth. “You can’t help people who won’t help themselves. Trust me on this.”

“But she won’t even let me lend my shoulder. I can’t just watch her suffer! Yang's hurting!”

“My daughter is.” Taiyang looked a thousand years older. “But you have to let her come to you first. If she wants help, she’ll ask for it.”

Blake nearly screams in frustration, but she bites her tongue. She’ll have to trust her spitfire. They have tangoed around the cracks in their relationship long enough. There is no reason to deepen those fissures.

She rubs her eyes. “I just wish I could do something.”

Taiyang washes his hands. He takes out a tray of strawberry and rosewater macarons from the oven, and begins placing them on a ceramic plate. “Can you give Yang a snack?” he asks.

Blake accepts the plate. “Will do, Mr. Xiao Long.”

 

The cat Faunus knocks on the door. There's no response, so she edges the door open. For the first time, Yang is painting in colors other than the White Fang’s. She perches by the window, studying the green leaves swaying outside. A flick of her wrist sends tendrils of white twirling over the canvas. Her lover picks up a palette knife, and begins scraping the paint into the veins of a leaf.

For the first time, her room is not silent.

“ _Rám vigyorog a tükröm oly furcsán_ ,” the man on the radio croons in the windswept tones of Patch’s tongue. It’s a song that wouldn’t be out of place on a beach mix. “ _Néz valamilyen laza trükkel már megint új arcot cserél.”_

Yang dips her brush into cadmium yellow. The boar hair bristles rasp across her wooden palette.

“ _De érzem azt hogy nekem így jó, jó, jó.”_

“Hey, spitfire.” Blake sets the plate on the brush. “I brought something for you. If you’re hungry.”

Yang doesn’t reply.

“ _Velem is megtörtént de nekem így jó, jó, jó.”_

Blake rests her head against the door. “I’m really sorry, Yang. I didn’t want to leave you in the hospital. I know you don’t like it when I run off on White Fang missions. And… well… I know you miss your mom. I… I just wish we could talk."

The beat picks up. “ _A külsőség is csak kifogás, egy megtévesztő máz._ ”

“I don’t blame you,” Yang says finally. “I read the mission brief. You did the right thing. I’ve… I’ve just been thinking about things, Blakey.”

“Would you… if you’re feeling like it, share with me?”

“You can come in, you know.” Yang sets her brush in a jar of paint cleaner. “I’m sorry. It’s just… these thoughts, they’re so loud.”

Blake perches on a chair. Her lover is thinner, older now. She can see age peeping through the white hairs among the golden locks and the smile wrinkles etched into the face she loves. Dust, it was too good to last.

“I… I don’t know how to feel about Raven.” Yang picks up a tube of blue paint, and squirts a generous dollop onto her crowded palette. Some of it splashes onto her prosthetic arm. “Yeah, she was my mom. And she tried to make up for just dumping me and dad. But on the same time, she left. And when she was on her big mission to save the world, she didn’t really care who she hurt. She just waltzed back into our lives and expected that we would welcome her.”

Blake stays silent.

“ _Lehet zöld az ég és lehet kék a fű_ ,” the man on the radio croons. _“Nekem mindegy hisz végül is így gyönyörű.”_

“I’m sad she’s dead. I’m sad that I never got to say goodbye. But that’s how our relationship went.” The blonde brawler daubs flecks of sky blue into the spaces between the leaves. “She came and went, without saying goodbye or hello.”

_“A tévedés néha jó.”_

Yang dips her brush into the cup of water and stirs. _  
_

_“Tudod Amerikába is így jutott el az a hajó.”_

“I wonder if it’s too late.” Yang rests her brush against the canvas. A tiny droplet of sapphire-toned water wends its way along the ridges of paint. “I wonder if it’s selfish, to start a family now. I don’t want to be like Raven. I want to create life – I want to give life to this world. It doesn’t have to be just punching monsters all the time. I want to give someone the ability to stand up, and say, _I’m proud to be alive._ ”

The brawler turns to her lover. “Is that why you keep on going after the White Fang? You may be a Huntress, but you’re a diplomat at heart. Do you think you’re making a better world?”

“I hope so,” Blake says. “I… to some extent, I do feel responsible for what they’ve done. But they’re Faunus like me. I… see, in the White Fang, they tell you your fellow Faunus are the only people you have on your side. I know that’s not true. But I do feel a responsibility to help my brother and sisters out.” Her face hardens. “Until they strike at those I love.”

“Guess we got something in common there.” Yang laughs, though the sound is hollow, and fingers the opal on her ring. “I don’t know what to do, Blakey. I’ve been a Huntress all my life. I’ve been good for one, two punches, and delivering the final blow. I can’t do that anymore."

"You're taking this… surprisingly well."

"My dad told you." Yang looked around the room. "Spent a lot of this time in this bed, wondering if you were coming back. I hated you at times. Then I'd love you so fiercely it felt like my heart would explode."

"I'm so sorry, spitfire."

"It's in the past, _ming qin_. I've had thirty years to get used to that. And this." Yang waves her prosthetic arm. The arm is a miracle of Atlesian and Ruby's technological know-how. It can transform from a gauntlet with micromissiles to a cybernetic interface in less than a second, but its heavily reinforced structure is more for fist-fighting than flipping the pages of a book.  "There's no need for a brawler now. I mean, my body won't even let me anymore. What can I do now? What good is a Huntress who can't fight?”

The Cat Faunus looks over the paintings scattered across the room. “You could become an artist. History textbooks could use your work. You were there, after all. Who better to retell history than those who saw it? Especially a storyteller as good as you.”

Yang laughs. It’s like sunshine spilling from her soul and into the room. “Always the flatterer, _ming qin_. I guess that would make Professor Oobleck happy as well.”

"As long as you don't become a caffeine addict." Blake breaks a macaron in half, and offers the crumbly morsel. "I like the current Yang very much, and the current Oobleck not half as much."

"Good to know - my partner loves me more than her former teacher!"

The cat Faunus waves the macaron before Yang's lips. "Wasn't even a contest, spitfire."

Yang takes it from her hand. A pink tongue lashes over the full lips, wiping away stray crumbs.

Blake leans in, and kisses her lover. After a second, Yang kisses her back.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” they whisper to each other.

 

It gets easier then. Blake feeds Yang bits of macaron as her lover paints. The same song plays on repeat in the background, but Blake barely notices. They talk, of what the White Fang left, and scars that still reopen. They talk of parents who were barely there, and the friends who have become their blood.

“I’m glad I never had kids,” Blake says, nesting her cheek against Yang’s shoulder. “They say abused children grow up to be abusers themselves. I would never condemn a child to that fate.”

“I don’t think you’d be abusive. Come here, I can’t turn my head.” When Blake’s lips are an inch from her own, Yang kisses her. “You’re a good person, Blake. No matter where you came from. Just look at who you are today.”

Blake kisses her back, and fingers the alexandrite on her left hand. “When you gave me this,” she holds up the sun-bright gold ring, “you told me that this stone was just like my soul. Multifaceted, and infinite in color and depth.”

“And when you gave me my ring, you said I was like an opal. People see the flash, and ignore the milky warmth that supports it.” Yang shakes her head, wincing slightly. “I called you a sap.”

“I am not a sap. It was very poetic.”

Yang laughs and ruffles Blake's hair, taking care not to harm the cat ears perched between black locks. “Well, that’s something I won’t end up doing.” Her face grew sober. “Blakey, could you do me a favor?”

Blake entwines her hands with her lover’s. “Anything for you, spitfire.”

The golden brawler motions to the radio. “That song was one of my mom’s favorites. I… I know you speak Patchian, and I don’t want to make you feel like this is a job–“

“Relax, spitfire.” Blake squeezes the hands in her grasp. After a short moment, Yang squeezes back. “It’s not a job if it’s for you.”

“I’d like to know what it means,” Yang says in a rush of breath. “Raven was always humming this tune, but I never learnt the words, and I kinda regret it because she’ll never do it again and I want to learn–“

Blake places a finger on her lover’s lips. “Do you want the literal translation, or the real meaning?”

“The meaning,” Yang says immediately. She gestures with her prosthesis. The software inside interacts with the radio, and turns up the volume.

 

“ _Lehet zöld az ég és lehet kék a fű_ ,” the singer chirps.

“The sky can be green and the grass can be blue,” Blake says softly. Her lover’s amethyst eyes are glued to the Cat Faunus’s face.

“ _Nekem mindegy, hisz végül is így gyönyörű._ ”

“I don’t mind – it’s still so beautiful.”

Yang hums deep in her throat to the tune of the song.

“ _A tévedés néha jó_.”

“Even a mistake can be good.”

Her golden lover shakes her head. Long locks cascade over Blake’s front.

“Even a mistake can be good,” she muses, then flashes a grin at Blake. “Well. I’ve made plenty of those, but loving you? Absolutely not a mistake.”

Blake merely smiles, and kisses her lover on the forehead. “You flatterer.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Lehet zöld az ég", by Varga Viktor  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jv-BEPF18o)
> 
> Region: Patch  
> Language: Hungarian
> 
> Imagine that Remnant's equivalents of Hungarians sailed from Atlas, which has languages that share roots common to Hungarian, to Patch, where they proceeded to establish a colony. Or maybe Patch just has a lot of Atlesian immigrants. Who knows? That's the magic of headcanons!
> 
> One thing I think RWBY will eventually have to address is Yang's fighting style. Sure, punching is great and powerful, but it's going to take a massive blow on your joints. Yang is older and wiser in this chapter, so it's not like when she lost an arm. But it's still painful knowing that you can't do what you love anymore, because your body has given up.


	6. That Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They exist in an equilibrium of language and love.

“Are you ready?” Blake asks her partner.

A faint smile creeps up Yang’s lips. She leans heavily on her cane. Although months of physiotherapy have done wonders for Blake’s lover, Yang still tires quickly if she’s on her feet for too long.

Now retired from fighting, Yang spends her time translating. She speaks all languages of the Valean continent, some from Atlas, and a few from Vacuo. She draws stories from dusty tomes and spins them into the common tongue of Atlas. She builds bridges between former White Fang, sitting in fluorescent-lit cells, translating their stories from sand-swept Vacuoan into the sweep and dip of her neat writing.

Blake thinks of the awards that cover their bedroom – the blue-ribboned Winner of the Babel Award, the certificate for Nominee for Patchian Person of the Year, the front page of Times, all sitting among the watercolors Raven painted and the songs of Yang’s father – and smiles to herself.

How far they have come.

“I’ve spent most of my life fighting fire with fire.” Yang folds up her cane and stores it in her belt. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Her golden-haired translator looks at the girl sitting at the table of the interrogation room. Hirondelle Roux, age sixteen, daughter of the head of the last White Fang cell. Blake had killed the girl’s father. Years earlier, Yang had handicapped the girl’s mother. The fury is almost palpable, coalescing around the dark-eyed Swallow Faunus like planets orbiting their sun.

Hirondelle has never been convicted of a crime, but she is set to enter foster care until she comes of age. Although the world has changed, no place will welcome a former member of the White Fang who still spews hatred towards humans. Blake had read up on her case – partly out of guilt, partly out of a sense of duty. It was Yang who wanted to give the girl a second chance.

She has seen how short life can be. She does not want someone else to waste their precious time.

“I hope this time will be different,” Yang says, as if reading her partner's mind, and opens the door.

 

“ _Salut, Hirondelle,_ ” Blake says, the tongue rolling smoothly off her tongue. Yang pulls out the chair for the Cat Faunus. Blake settles into the rickety fold-out and brings out her tablet. “ _T’as eu du temps à penser. Le petit déjeuner t’a plaît?”_

Hello, Hirondelle. You’ve had time to think. Had a good breakfast?

“ _Va t’en faire foutre,_ ” Hirondelle spits. She struggles against the restraints. “ _T’as apporter un sans-queue? Espèce de quisling!_ ”

Go fuck yourself. You brought a tail-less? Quisling.

“ _Je t’ai blessée.”_ Yang spreads her hands. “ _Je vou–_ no, _veux dire, désolée_.”

I hurt you. I wanted to say sorry.

Hirondelle’s eyes widen. “ _Elle parle Vaçuais?_ ” she asks, pointing to Blake.

She speaks Vaçuais?

“ _Oui, j’essaie_ ,” Yang says, gaining confidence with every syllable. “ _Je veux parle ton langue_.”

Yes, I try. I want to speak your language.

“ _Par_ ler ta _langue_.” Blake pecks her partner on the nape of the neck. “ _Mais bien joué, minou_.”

Speak your language. But well done, kitty.

“Too fast.” The golden haired translator shakes her head. “ _Que voul–_ no, _veut-dire minou?_ ”

“ _C’est un chat, tout ‘tit et mignon_ ,” Hirondelle says, her pupils still wide as the full moon. “ _C’est pas un poisson d’avril?_ ” the bird Faunus says, looking at Blake. “ _Elle sait comment parler en Vaçuais?_ ”

It’s a little kitty, all tiny and cute. It’s not a trick? She knows how to speak Vaçuais?

“ _Eh bien oui."_ Blake shrugs, her cat ears twitching in plain sight. _"Disons, la façade ne représente pas ce qui reste dessous_.”

Sure do. Let’s just say, the mask doesn’t show what hides underneath.

“ _C’est un piège_.” Hirondelle starts shaking. _“T’veux me faire chanter, c’est ça? J’en parle pas!_ ”

It’s a trap. You want to make me talk? I won’t!

“ _À l’aise,_ ” Yang says, holding out her hands. “ _Peut-être on peut bavarder un peu. Un noveau départ, une nouvelle histoire, disons. Je m’appelle Yang…_ ”

Easy. Maybe we could talk a little. Say, a new start, a new story. My name is Yang…

And as always, her subject starts listening. 

It is here that the healing begins.

 

* * *

 

It’s a lazy Sunday morning. Pink light drifts through the Vacuoan windows, blessing all it touches with a warm haze. They started the day late, tangled up in cotton sheets and scarred arms and kisses like spring rain trailing down the column of Yang’s neck. But they are important members of the community – Blake, as a diplomat, and Yang, as her translator – and so they drag themselves from bed.

(But not without sneaking a few more kisses in the shower.)

Yang is hunched over stacks of papers, silver-rimmed glasses perched atop her head like a pair of kitty ears. There are hints of white threading those golden locks that were not present five years ago. Still, her partner looks as vibrant as she ever did.

The pan sings under Blake’s hands. She sprinkles finely chopped onions atop the frothy mix. Hints of sunset-colored salmon and dark green peppers peek out of the golden eggs. She takes pride in her work: the omelet will blanket a bed of rice shaped like a sleeping kitty. On another plate sits a bagel, sliced into thirds and slathered with cream cheese, bridging a river of freshest of blueberries.

Only the best, for her partner in crime.

“Blake, you busy?” Yang asks.

The cat-eared Faunus summons her Aura. It wells up in her core and bursts from her body, forming a clone that chirps, “ _varjón csak!_ ” before disappearing.

“Wait a moment,” Yang translates. Her pen taps against a stack of papers. “Got it.”

Blake flips the omelet onto the bed of rice, and heads to the kitchen table. The Cat Faunus presses a loving kiss to the nape of her partner’s neck. “What’s going on, spitfire?”

“Could you look through this?” Yang holds up the translated page of Raven’s memoirs. “I’ve added Hirondelle’s testimony, but I just want to make sure it’s correct.”

Blake briefly scans through it. The translation is flawless, capturing even Hirondelle’s North Vacuoan accent.

“I love it.” She pecks her lover on the cheek. “I’m so proud of you, Yang.”

“For what?”

“Well… for being you.” Blake thumbs the alexandrite on her wedding ring. “I… I guess I’m so happy to have you here, after all we’ve been through.”

She feels Yang smile. The golden translator turns her head and kisses Blake’s hand.

“You have to go into the office today?” Yang asks.

Blake sighs. “I’m sorry, spitfire, but those reports of Faunus discrimination… I can’t let that pass.”

“I know, _ming qin_. Not everyone can be as happy as we are.” Yang kisses her partner again. “When you get back, I have a surprise for you.”

“Can’t wait,” Blake says, and yet once again, she falls in love with this golden woman.

 

* * *

 

She’s sweaty, she’s irritated, she kinda wants to tear someone’s head off. Blake stalks up the path to her house. Thirty years – thirty! Of peace accords, and reparations, and apologies, and still there are people who subconsciously believe Faunus are subhuman and deserve to be treated as such. Blake knows change is slow, and the perpetrators may not necessarily be bad people, but after comforting the third victim in a day, she is ready to blow.

“I spend my entire life working with humans, and sometimes, I think nothing’s changed,” she grumbles.

Blake jams her key into the door. Black silk curtains hang over the doorway, blocking the view in.

 

“Welcome home, madame,” Yang says, pulling the curtains aside with a jet-gloved hand. Her lover is dressed in a sleek black dress that hugs her form. A slit running up to her thighs shows off shapely, battle-scarred legs. The cane rests against the front door, clearly unneeded today. Something flashes in Blake’s peripheral view: she looks down, at the moonstone and sunstone necklace nestled at Yang’s collarbones.

A smile spreads up Blake’s face as she drinks the sight in. “You look lovely.”

Yang grins. “I know,” and the mask drops back down. “I’d like to be of service. May I take your bags, madame?”

The diplomat hands over her briefcase. Once Yang has taken hold of her bag, she unclips Gambol Shroud from the harness on her back and hands it over.

“Excellent. Please follow me. You’ll find a fresh set of clothes in the room to your right.” Yang winks. “I hope they are to your liking.”

Blake almost says, _You didn’t have to do this_ , but she stops herself. This is how her partner shows her love: in kisses caught between bouts of gunfire, and late nights spent pouring over old texts. Who is she to deny Yang this?

Instead, she follows Yang into their walk-in closet, where a shimmering gold dress hangs on a model. Blake fingers the gauzy material. It looks just like a painting Raven once made: a corset draped in folds of liquid sunshine that dovetail out to her calves. The dress is backless, with a ribbon that comes around to encircle the wearer’s neck. The front of the ribbon is cut into two cat ears. It seems to fit Yang better – that glorious, golden goddess – than Blake’s pale skin.

Around the model’s neck sits a simple silver circlet. Tiny moonstones glimmer on its front in the shape of a cat’s paw. It would fit perfectly on her head, without even touching her ears.

“When you are ready, madame, I will escort you to the dining hall,” Yang says with mock seriousness, then closes the door. “I hope you have an appetite!”

Blake looks at the dress. She sets her forearm against the fabric. Instead of drowning her out, it brings out the softness of her skin.

She runs her fingers through the gauze trailing off the waist. It reminds her of Adam’s cleaning cloths, and the way he’d clean his swords after their lessons. Bittersweet memories now, but the pain has long since faded – helped, by Yang’s unceasing love.

She sheds her black and white garments, and takes on the sun.

 

Her lover insists on slipping a black mask over her eyes. Yang guides her down the hallway, to what her senses tell her must be their dining room. But when Yang takes off the mask, she finds it hard to believe it is the same room. A grand piano sits against the twilit windows. Rose petals cover the floor. The dining table has disappeared under a black tablecloth, weighed down by tens of plates: salmon sashimi, croque-monsieurs, macarons no bigger than the rose petals, tuna-belly rolls… all hand-crafted with care.

“Will you have red, or white?” Yang asks, ushering Blake into a seat.

Blake smiles at her. “Surprise me, o _maître-d’oeuvres._ ”

Yang selects a bottle of cream-colored bubbling wine, and pours some into a wine glass. She makes a great show of swirling the pale liquid about – her characteristic cheeky grin taking its rightful place once more – before setting the glass down.

“And now, for our entertainment.”

The blonde translator clicks her way over to the piano, effortlessly walking in three-inch high heels. Her fingers dance along the keys, playing rapid-fire scales that span its width. Yang presses the pedal – once, twice, the metal groans beneath her feet – and she turns to Blake with a smile.

“This one goes to our wonderful ladies at home.”

Yang takes a deep breath. As sure as the sun will rise above the horizon, she sings surely in the tongue of North Vale.

“S _umgyowatdon naui sujubun maum modu nege julge_." Yang's fingers dance along the keyboard. “ _Yeiyeh~_ _chagaun narul umjiginun noui miso_.”

Blake sits among the rose petals, and listens.

“ _Jidoghan nege uimirul jun noui sarang._ ” Yang teases a wistful melody from the keys, the Northern Vale tongue flowing fluently from her lips. “As time passes, I'm changing more and more.”

The music continues. Blake occasionally pops a piece of fatty tuna into her lips, savoring the taste, but her eyes are on the singer. God, how lucky is she, to love a woman like this?

“She is the girl.” Yang coaxes the melody from the piano. “What? She is the one…”

Her fingers draw out the last wistful notes.

Then the tempo changes.

“ _Negau koto_ ,” Yang sings, “ _tsurakutemo, tachimukau yuuki kimi ni moratta yo. Dakura yuku ne, yume no naka, mata aeru yo_!”

Blake follows the lyrics, silently mouthing the translation. “ _Now simply fold your wings and sleep restfully, be wrapped up in an eternal tranquility, and love through all eternity_.”

The medley continues, switching back and forth between the two songs. Yang leads, her voice and quick fingers guiding her Cat Faunus. Blake follows along, her fingers tapping out the melody on the stem of her wine glass.

When the song ends, Blake begins to cheer and clap. It’s not like her, but for her partner? She’ll do anything.

 

“Thank you!” Yang says, a deep blush coloring her cheeks. “This next song is for the… ah, shall we say, lovers.”

Yang takes a deep breath, and starts playing a rocking melody that has Blake itching to dance.

“ _Malhaji ma amu maldo pillyo eobseo, chokchogi jeojeun nae ipsure salmyeosi dagawa ip matchwojwo,_ ” chants the golden songbird.

“Why does my heart pound so fast,” Blake whispers, her head bobbing to the tune, “now the time has finally come.”

Yang was right – the translation does seem clunky in her throat. There is magic in words kept in their original tongue.

“ _Geudaeyeo boreumdari tteuneun nal, geudae sarangeul jwoyo,_ ” the golden brawler lifts her hand long enough to blow Blake a kiss, _“i bami gagi jeone hae tteugi jeone nal boreo wayo!_ Perfect weather, can’t get no better!”

The moon rises into the sky, fat and full in its bed of stars. Blake summons her clones to give the candles to her lover. With a flick of Yang’s hand, the candles bathe the room in their warm glow, and the clones set them on safe places around the room. One by one, the clones return to Blake’s body, but not before kissing her partner.

 

“One last song,” Yang says, as the candles sputter and flicker in puddles of molten wax. The delicious treats are gone, either crumbs dotting Yang’s lips or sitting comfortably in Blake’s belly. “And I think you’ll know this one."

Blake throws a careless leg over her lover’s lap and wraps her arms around her shoulders. “Oh? Show me, spitfire.”

The chords begin.

“ _Ni shi… wo huo… Ni shi… wo yuan wang…_ ”

Blake stifles a laugh. “Really?”

“ _Xian shi… ting wo shuo…_ ” Yang’s grin widens, a non-verbal, _you betcha!_. “ _Wo yao ni na yang_.”

“Oh Dust. You’re so cheesy!”

“And you love it.” Yang’s fingers never stop keying out the melody. “ _Ke shi… wo men ying fen kang…_ ”

“I love you so much, you nerd.” Blake ruffles Yang’s hair, almost dislodging the silver circlet comfortably nestled against her own jet-black ears.

“ _Gao su wo: wei shen me rang wo xin tong_.” Yang trills out the last note. “ _Gao su wo: wei shen me bu xing tong_.”

“ _Gao su wo_ ,” Blake adds, shoulders shaking in repressed laughter. Her heart swells for this human – her human, her partner, her lover and wife. All these years of working to restore peace between the White Fang and humans – they mean something. The tears they’ve shed, the blood they’ve lost – it is worth it for moments of peace for the people she loves. No, she cannot solve everyone's problems, but that doesn't mean she can't try to help them. This is what she fights for: small moments engraved into her skin and the hopes of a people downtrodden for too long. She comes to her lover, hands bloodstained and scarred, but in Yang's light, the scars are made beautiful, a testament to old battles and loves lost.

Language ties them together: from the windswept tones of Patch and the desert haze of Eastern Vacuo to the rollicking wave-like rhythm of Northern Vale and the guttural earthiness of West Atlas, there are a thousand ways to say, “I love you.” In the softness of a hand caressing a cheek or the rough laughter against her back, the duo bridge cultures and histories into one duet.

Yang winks at her lover as her hands eke out the chorus. “You know how this goes?”

Blake kisses her in response.

“ _Wo bu yao yin wei ting ni shuo,_ ” Yang sings.

“I want it that way,” Blake finishes.

"No, I want it that way," they chorus.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: "She is," by Clazziquai  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXZ_wSYxzWs)  
> Region: North Vale
> 
> I'll give you the nervous feelings I've hidden, Yeah~  
> Your beauty moved my coldness  
> /few lines later/  
> Your love gave your strong personality a purpose
> 
> Song: "Kimi no Kioku," by Shoji Meguro, sung by Yumi Kawamura  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHdOXCoja-c)  
> Region: West Vale
> 
> Even though it hurts (to make a wish), I received the courage to fight from you, so I will go  
> If I awaken (from a dream), I'll be able to see you again
> 
> Song: "Full Moon", by Sunmi ft. Lena  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BBF3vRY85M)  
> Region: North Vale
> 
> Don’t say a word, it’s better to stay silent  
> Come to my moist lips gently and give me a kiss  
> /few lines/  
> On the night of the full moon, give me your love  
> Before the night ends, before sunrise, please hurry
> 
> Song: translation of "I Want It That Way", by Da Wen and co.  
> (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5CP8h4Hw2Y)  
> Region: East Vale  
> All lyrics available on the video.
> 
> And so ends Ven a bailar! Thank you for waiting; I wanted this story to end just right. Lots of cheese, but after all they've been through, Bumbleby deserves something nice. Hope you've enjoyed the ride!


End file.
